It is late on a Sunday night. You've just gotten back from a late dinner with your friends. Your roommate is showering for the evening, and you're scrolling through Twitter on your phone when your friend texts you a question about citing a source for a paper. You can feel the color drain from your face as you remember. There's a paper due tomorrow, and beyond some outlining, you have done nothing. Let the all-nighter begin!
1. Procrastination
Despite the panic living in the back of your throat, you seem to be in no rush to get started on this paper. You feign productivity while your roommate is still awake to judge you for waiting this long to start a paper worth 25% of your final grade. Once they're asleep, though, you take your dear old sweet time making coffee and scrolling through social media. You have the entire night ahead of you, right?
2. The Struggle
It is now 2 am. Being on social media is no longer socially acceptable. The friend that said they'd text you all night to make sure you stay awake has fallen asleep on their futon with their hand in a half-full bag of stale Doritos. Now is the time to buckle down and push through the first page of your paper. Words have never been harder.
3. Tired but Wired
It's three-thirty. The first page is done, and you're wondering why it took so long to write it. You fly through the second and third pages with ease. Your online music streaming service of choice is on your side, playing good songs that don't distract you from the task at hand. You are a genius. The prose flowing from your fingers is making Shakespeare quake from beyond the grave. You are going to finish this paper, and you might even get a couple hours of sleep before class.
4. The Wave
Around five, it finally hits you. The inevitable Wave of Exhaustion. You fight to keep your eyes open, but the urge to sleep is too strong. Admitting defeat, you set a timer for half an hour and take a power nap right there in your desk chair.
5. Resurgence
Newly rejuvenated by your thirty minute power nap, you dive back into your paper with an unseen level of enthusiasm. Where did it come from? Who knows. You aren't one to question the Spirit of Motivation and the gifts it brings to those in need.
6. The Existential Crisis
You reach the end of your paper and once again begin to process the world around you. The sun is beginning to peak through your window. Your roommate's alarm starts to go off. You look at the time and realize you have an hour until your first class. Your hands, which once wrote beautiful words, now seem to function beyond your control. Every other word out of your mouth is a yawn. At breakfast, the only thing that seems to be in the same plane of existence as you is coffee. You finished the paper, but at what cost?
